Page 753 - Dilution Solution

Author Notes:

The funny thing about doing the Story Time 3 project is that it forced me to get up to date on the show. Even though I knew the comic was going to go in this direction, I didn't actually have the episode on-hand until I updated my library so I could go screencap-hunting for Story Time.

35 Comments:

This year's birthday for me I've been hunting down artists who are available for commission work. Sharing the wealth of birthday funds to get art drawn of my pony OC. Because who doesn't like getting a slice of the pie, right?

Mmm, pie. You like pie? I like pie. Pumpkin and apple are my favorites, and not long ago I actually got into eating key lime on occasion. That's something I don't always see on PC backgrounds-- lists of the kind of foods they like best.

...I would make brownies, but I do not know you irl. So here's a brownie recipe:

Get the brownie mix that looks like it has the most chocolate without adding chocolate chips or similar.
Mix as per the instructions.
Add 2 bags of mini Chocolate Chips. Or 1 bag of chocolate chips and 1 bag melt-able candy.
Cook to the maximum time for the recipe.
When it gets out it will be very gooey, so ignore the fork test.

I was just reading some articles about how antibiotic-resistant diseases are getting out of control. I'm wondering if in a magical world such as Equestria, if certain diseases can develop magical immunity?

Only if the magical cure leaves some pathogens alive. Antibiotic resistance is evolution in action. Those microbes that survive the drug by some chance mutation reproduce, resulting in a strain that has the same resistance. Further use of the drug keeps selecting for resistant strains.

So, it all comes down to whether a bacterium's genome can express spell resistance.

Didn't the Drow evolve spell resistance because the underdark is full of magical dangers? It would be interesting to have magically resistant bacteria in a magical setting. If the spell that is used to attack a bacteria has a saving throw, then it stands that a small number might survive with a lucky roll. ;)

Actually, I think Shadowrun has something similar in the anti-magic bacterial concept, and it's used to prevent mages from doing things like astral projection through a bank vault door.

There are many more types of magic than there are antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance might map to Cure Disease resistance, or even spell resistance, but overall "magic" immunity seems like resistance to medicine.

Well, in this case, I don't think it does anything to the flu, actually. It just makes the ponies healthier, which counters the 'making ponies weaker' symptom of the flu. It's like drinking a lot of coffee to stay awake when an illness is making you drowsy.

That's actually a plot hook in "Heroes of Horror". A disease develops magic resistance either by natural selection or by divine will, and spreads like wildfire without Cure Disease spells being able to affect it.

So this episode is both a musical episode (6 songs) and a ponified adaptation of a classic holiday story ( A Christmas Carol)

This episode is perfection. The music, the story, the way they use the cast everything is just perfect

Highlights of the episode

1) Derpy is best Christmas Tree Star
2) Starlight Glimmer is best Scrooge
3) Vinyl and Octavia rocking like its 1899
4) the fact that the animators actually animated the uvula vibrating while a character sings is awesome
5) also animating how a body reacts to having a spirit walk through you was spot on
6) Pinkie Pie wearing the exact outfit that the spirit of Christmas Present wears in the original story

Man was this a good episode, of the three Hearthswarming episodes so far this one is the best.

My favorite part: trying to figure out who would play the future spirit. Eliminating the possibilities one by one until the reveal. Given the future that the spell lead to, the choice of future spirit was spot on.

You know the implications of the current plot are scary. They can get a potion that allows the pegasi to ignore the feather flu but not cure it, so they are still infected. This means that it will still be potentially contagious and thus possibly infect the other pegasi in ponyville, not to mention the water supply they are SENDING TO CLOUDSDALE TO BE DISTRIBUTED ACROSS EQUESTRIA!!!! Well I'm sure Twilight will figure that out....

There are potentially a hundred or more pegasi.
Relying on not a single one of them having a contagious disease, even a minor one like a flu, is kind of optimistic.
In other words, they should already be expecting the water to have been in contact with at least a few infected ponies - if not the water from Ponyville in a given year, then maybe the water from another town instead, or maybe all of them if it's flu season.
Really, the only problem is that it happened at the worst possible time - a week earlier, and everyone'd been just about back in shape by now.
Heck, a plot point a comic or two back was exactly the fact that they've been infectious for a while (and probably aren't anymore, for that matter): You could cure it 100% in everyone who's showing symptoms, and there'd still be ponies in the 'contagious' stage.

This, my friends, is what we over at TV Tropes refer to as "fridge brilliance". The issue doesn't even need to be addressed in the comic; random facts that have been already brought up, plus a little extrapolation, solve problems that might not even have existed.